Finding Jennifer

By Dave Folsom

Charlie Draper only took the job of finding the missing girl as favor. He approached it convinced that the hot desert sun had likely eliminated another unprepared hiker rather than a part of the Border Wars. It didn’t take long to realize his error. Then it became complicated. In less than a day he discovers that drug cartel members shot her and threw her into a volcano vent. The resulting trail leads into Mexico where his actions bring on the wrath of the cartel. The bodies start to pile up with a vengeance as he and his helicopter-flying Apache friend attempt to rescue the young women and prevent the revenge determined drug alliance from killing them all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave Folsom
• Release date: Jun 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476267531

Dave Folsom

Born and raised in Montana, Dave graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in Forestry and spent the first decade of his career working in and around the logging industry. This experience led to his first published short story entitled “Scaling Rexford” which won honorable mention in the 1992 Edition of the University of Oregon’s West Wind Review. This work eventually led to his first novel, “Scaling Tall Timber.” Dave’s published works include “Scaling Tall Timber” as well as “The Zeitgeist Project,” and “Running with Moose.” a collection of short stories and essays.In 2011, Dave published his fourth book, “The Dynameos Conspiracy,” a mystery-thriller surrounding a plot to destroy the national electrical power grid. All of Dave’s books are available from online bookstores, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble in paperback, as well as numerous e-book formats, including Nook and Kindle from a variety of online distributers. These were followed by Finding Jennifer and Sonoran Justice two thrillers featuring Charlie Draper in 2012. Coming in late 2013 a third Charlie Draper thriller entitled Big Sky Dead.

Book preview

Sunday, 5:47 am

Jennifer Hollings parked her five-year old Honda CRV at the new wash; an inauspicious beginning to a day she hoped would improve. An exaggeration when called a road, the previous rough, gravelly, seventeen mile, two cow-path byway, intended at the end of the 19th Century for mule-drawn ore wagons, challenged the Honda’s suspension. The remnants of the old wagon road ended at the edge of a deep channel, now impassable due to rare spring rain. Surrounded by fifty-plus miles of Sonoran Desert in any direction, Jennifer loaded her backpack in the predawn darkness with three 24 ounce bottles of water, a small Mini-Maglite, two Granny Smith apples, two whole grain bread and sliced roast beef sandwiches and a package of Twinkies. She’d decided the two mile walk to the old mine site would burn enough calories to afford the sweet. Arranging everything in the backpack to ensure the Twinkies survived undamaged, Jennifer added her camera bag and wiggled into the backpack straps.

Ready to go, she lifted her camera strap over her head, securing her prized Canon EOS 7D digital SLR camera with its 28-135mm kit lens close to her body. Jennifer treasured the 18 megapixel camera body and hated the kit lens. She preferred a longer, faster lens but her meager salary at the local newspaper prevented the purchase. As a beginning photographer/writer, copy person and maker of the morning coffee for anybody that wanted it, Jennifer’s skimpy paycheck barely covered her living expenses. She skipped meals and saved loose change to buy gas for her desert photography trips. So, the kit lens had to do, and she concentrated on composition, detail, and lighting to compensate. Her plan this morning included using the hike to catch a desert critter or two framed in her camera lens and reach the mine site as the morning sun created long shadows on the landscape. The old buildings would standout like lonely pillars of a past time.

Jennifer respected the desert. She knew the silent, seemingly unoccupied setting was filled with silently struggling vegetation hiding any number of ominous creatures. Snakes, scorpions, and an occasional tarantula lurked in the sparse grasses and green barked Palo Verde brush while Giant Saguaro cactus stood like soldiers guarding her path, arms held out in welcome. She appreciated the Sonoran Desert, but had also learned enough about it to respect its unseen dangers.

Taller than average at five-foot-nine with a slim build, she enjoyed hiking in the cool of the morning and a thrill of anticipation rose in her anticipating the coming adventure. She tied back her reddish-brown hair with a cotton scarf to keep it out of her eyes. When she was younger she’d hated her carrot-top hair not only because of the color, but because it curled in tight ringlets making her look like a red-headed Shirley Temple. As she aged through puberty, her hair darkened and now in her mid-twenties it was more auburn than red, but still curly. Her feet protected by sensible hiking boots with Vibram soles, she wore rugged Levi pants and a boys Brushpopper shirt to protect herself from thorns. The single common trait of desert flora was wickedly sharp and sometimes barbed protrusions.

Jennifer dropped into the wash and climbed up the other side impatient to follow the remnants of the old wagon road to the mine site and its abandoned structures. The old buildings would make a dramatic backdrop for her photographical creations. It was spring and the desert bloomed in proliferate color contrasting deeply with its normal earthy tones. Backpack laden, Jennifer hiked through the growing heat enjoying the smells and sensations of crimson Ocotillo blooms, white and yellow flowers peeking from the tops of Saguaros and watching the antics of geckos racing through the hot sandy soil. The desert thrilled her; its empty landscape from a distance contrasted oddly to its abundance close up.

The gravel-filled trail she followed climbed upward along the rocky contour of an ancient volcano cone, one of many that dotted the desert floor. Jennifer considered herself desert savvy, seasoned in a variety of flora and fauna that eked out an existence in sometimes severe conditions. Summer temperatures routinely reached one-hundred-twenty in the scarcely available shade. This day, Jennifer knew it would barely reach ninety. Her pace was slow and steady, conserving energy as the sun peaked over the horizon and began its daily travel across a cloudless azure sky. She also considered herself tough; once allowing a traveling sidewinder rattlesnake to slither across her booted ankles while she clicked her Canon following its movements.

By seven a.m., after an hour of walking, Jennifer reached the half-way point in a small saddle between two pillars of eroded volcanic chimneys that looked, from afar, like two stubby fingers reaching for the sky. From the saddle she could see the mine a mile in the distance to the west and more Sonoran Desert below her extending miles to the South. Somewhere out in the blowing dust, marked only by rusting steel posts but at least several miles away, lay the U.S’s. southern border with Mexico. The border was like a sieve with a partially built fence, but mostly guarded by technology and under-manned Customs and Border Protection, the new umbrella agency including Border Patrol agents; a thin barrier to unrelenting illegal immigration and drug trafficking. The area around Jennifer was barren and far from any population center on the Mexican side and she hadn’t heard of any problems in this locale. Besides, she reasoned, the newscasters only showed activity at night. She had made this hike numerous times without seeing a soul.

Jennifer found a convenient rock outcrop and rested. She retrieved one of the bottles of water and surveyed the desert around her while she hydrated. Her eyes drank in the scene until a stately mule deer buck stepped out of the coulee below and looked up the hill trying to decide if Jennifer was a danger. Her heart skipped a beat in excitement as she slowly brought her Canon up, turned it on, dumped the lens cap and located the deer in her viewfinder. The buck’s heavy antlers framed in her lens, it stood for a couple of still shots before sensing peril. Jennifer followed its stiff-legged, bouncing escape shooting until the fleeing animal disappeared. Excited with her first shots of the day, she had reviewed the first five pictures when she saw what had made the deer bolt. Across the canyon, somewhat higher than where she sat, the picture included a flash of light, similar to the sun bouncing off a mirror. It startled her. She looked up from her camera and stared at the spot, certain that in her many trips to the old mine; she’d never before seen light reflected from the tightly massed boulder piles across the coulee. She brought up the camera with its less than perfect kit lens and swept the hillside, but the naked boulders revealed nothing, no movement, no reflection; only desert rock. Her mind was still puzzling when her head exploded in pain and the ground came up slapping her in the face. Her nose pressed in the desert sand, she didn’t hear the gunshot reverberation echoing in the canyon.

***

Hector Fuentes’ splitting headache resulted from an excessive number of tequila shots washed down by homemade beer brewed by his amigo Alejandro. His rotund stomach rumbled and he suffered from a first-class hangover including a case of the shakes. Having no one else to blame, he silently cursed Alejandro while pressing the barrel of his Russian made, suppressor-equipped Kalashnikov AKMS into his aching forehead. Hector was supposed to be watching the desert for anyone who might see their illicit activities. Instead, he sat crouched against a rough granite slab for nearly an hour, not bothering to survey the landscape until he heard Alejandro approaching. He unfolded the butt stock, cursing silently that he’d have to be alert, rose reluctantly and looked out between the rocks that concealed his lookout spot. It was then he spotted the girl. She was sitting on a boulder across the ravine and he’d completely missed her approach. He studied her through his rifle scope until she suddenly looked in his direction.

Shit! he mumbled to himself. She looked tall, slim and quite a pretty señorita and he hated to shoot her, which is what his orders said.

"Mi amigo! Alejandro exclaimed behind him, who is she?"

How the hell should I know? She just appeared. She must have spotted us. It looks like she’s taking pictures of our lookout.

"Shoot her, or the jefe will have our asses!"

She is but a young senorita, Hector argued.

Shoot dammit!

Hector could put most of a clip into a five-inch circle on any target within five hundred yards when he was rested and not hung-over. That day he could feel the alcohol induced tremor in his hands but the girl was much closer; he estimated two hundred yards, two twenty-five at maximum. He held his breath, centered the crosshairs in the AKMS’s telescope sight on the girl’s forehead and slowly let his breath out as he caressed the trigger. The barrel of the rifle jumped, expelling its deadly, controlled-expansion 7.62 millimeter bullet and recoiling into his shoulder as he watched the girl drop out of sight.

Got her! he exclaimed.

You better check and get rid of the body, his comrade mumbled. Dump her in that old mine shaft.

The two men bounded out of the hideout with Hector carrying the AKMS slung loosely over his shoulder and Alejandro with an ancient military version of the Model 1911 Colt .45 caliber automatic ready. It was old and badly worn, but deadly in close quarters or for a kill shot. Alejandro was determined to ensure the girl was very dead and the body disposed of post haste before the jefe could find out. When they reached the old mine road the girl was lying face down with considerable blood on the side of her head and on the ground.

She is dead, Hector noted.

How can you be so sure? Alejandro mumbled.

See the hole in her head and all the blood, she cannot be alive.

Okay, grab her stuff and let’s get rid of her. You get her arms.

They carried the limp girl clumsily for several yards before Alejandro dropped her feet and said, Just drag her, she won’t care.

Together the two banditos half carried, half dragged the girl into coulee, down into the boulder strewn bottom to the edge of a large hole. The rough-edged opening dropped six feet to a steep sloping floor disappearing into darkness. Both men mistakenly identified the hole as an old mine shaft. They dropped the unmoving girl at the edge and Alejandro used his boot to push her over the edge. She dropped limply onto the sloped floor, rolled once and began to slide, slowly at first then more rapidly before vanishing into the dark. He threw the girl’s backpack and the damaged camera in also and both slid down the sandy floor and disappeared.

"Creo qué! She will never be found!" Hector exclaimed.

"You’d better hope so, for both our sakes, mi amigo! The jefe will be very angry if the shipment gets delayed tonight." Alejandro felt a cold sweat creep up his back thinking about the repercussions should something deter the millions of American dollars that the night’s activity would represent. The coyotes would guide a hundred peons from Central America each loaded with a backpack containing bricks of heroin or cocaine in groups of five or six. The coyote would dress like the peons, each group taking a slightly different route to avoid detection. In fact, they expected to lose one or two of the groups; it was a cost of doing business. The Border Patrol would confiscate the drugs, hold the hikers for a couple of days and send them back, ready for another trip. The jefe said they would get jobs in the U.S. and live the good life, but Alejandro doubted it. Likely, after the drugs were delivered, the men were forced back into Mexico for more drugs, while the women were sold into prostitution or dumped without food, money or prospects. He tried not to think about it. He knew better because he’d come from Honduras at seventeen. They’d dumped him out in Phoenix with no money, no prospects, and the inability to speak English. He evaded the Border Patrol for a week until they picked him up, exhausted and half-starved, searching garbage cans in an east Glendale alley and shuffled him quickly back across the border into Mexico. That was ten years earlier, when it was easy to just walk across; before the jefe had introduced him to drugs, alcohol and a lot more. Now you had to earn the thirty thousand peso’s the coyote’s demanded.

Hector and Alejandro were back in the lookout rocks by late afternoon when the jefe showed up. He was a short, heavy-set man with long black hair loosely held in place by a large hoof-stomped and dust-coated straw sombrero. His stringy long moustache drooped around a thin-lipped mouth and dark eyes gave him a rigid look that he counted on when dealing with the peons. He stared at the two lookouts and sensed fear.

¿Que pasa? el jefe growled.

"Nothing, Jefe," Hector squeaked, clearing his throat. Despite being a killer himself, Hector feared the jefe, because behind those black eyes he could see nothing; no feeling, no conscience, nor sympathy; only coldness that brought dread to the pit of a man’s stomach.

Without taking his eyes off Hector the jefe drew his hip gun, a chrome-plated Ruger GP100 with a six inch barrel and chambered for either .357 Magnum or .38 Special ammunition. According to rumor, he’d acquired it off a half-drunk American who thought he was tough. The jefe shot the man cold dead in a Cindad Juarez cantina without a thought and the Ruger was his. He pulled Hector very close, shoving the chrome barrel up under his chin hard and cocked the hammer until it clicked.

"Would you like to die today, mi amigo?" the jefe said in a low growl that nearly stopped Hector’s heart without a bullet.

A girl... Hector squeaked, She came up the old mine road. He was having trouble with his tongue with the Ruger pressed under his throat.

And...

She saw us, took our picture, so I shot her, as our orders said.

And then! The jefe’s lack of patience was mirrored in his low voice. He jerked the barrel hard against Hector’s throat threatening to cut off his wind.

Hector gagged loudly before Alejandro cried, We threw her down the old mine shaft!

El Jefe turned and looked hard at Alejandro with icy eyes, "Show me, hombres," he growled.

The two lookouts led the jefe down the hill into the rocky draw to the hole where they’d dumped the girl.

It is here, Hector said. Cold sweat dribbled down the center of his back and he shivered in spite of the afternoon heat.

The jefe produced a flashlight and aimed it into the hole. That’s not a mine shaft.

It’s not? Alejandro asked.

It’s a volcano vent, idiot! The beam of the flashlight bounced off the solid rock walls and illuminated the sloping sandy floor. The jefe peered into the hole, satisfying himself that he could see no signs of the girl. Even the soft sand appeared undisturbed.

I should make you two climb down in there and drag her back out. Next time make sure no one will ever find the body and bury them across the border where the Border Patrol can’t even look. Understand?

"Sí, Jefe," Both men said in unison.

Now get back up there and keep watch. We will start tonight an hour before midnight as soon as the moon comes up.

Back in the lookout rocks, both men were relieved to be alone again. The jefe had given them a scare, thinking they’d end up in the hole with the girl.

"We are fortunate the jefe did not kill us," Alejandro said, more to himself than to Hector.

"Sí!" Hector replied, holding the AKMS tight to his chest so Alejandro could not see his shaking hands.

***

Jennifer Hollings’ first sensation was of being carried, roughly, and by two people. She knew it had to be two because she could feel hands under her shoulders and another set on her ankles. The mystery was why; her mind didn’t comprehend the reason they were carrying her and where. Voices floated above her, speaking rapidly in a language she’d heard before, but didn’t understand. Then there was the sensation of being dragged, her booted heels cutting a double path in the desert sand. Rough hands on her wrists making her arms feel like they would come loose from their sockets. She wanted to scream out in pain but her head ached too much. Gratefully, she let the darkness back in and felt nothing more.

TOC

Chapter Two

Tuesday, 6:14 am

Charlie Draper sat on his front porch drinking coffee laced with a touch of brandy and a generous dose of flavored cream, talking to himself. He allowed exactly two cups each morning; no more, no less, while he debated whatever subject rose to the forefront that morning. It was a habit, he conceded, a long standing one, and one he obsessed about not in the least. It was also his custom to rise early, usually just before first light, make the coffee and be in his porch chair in time to watch the sun peek over the distant mountains and flood the desert with morning radiance. The quiet beauty of the sunrise formed a backdrop for his solitary debates. His house, a stucco-covered box with a flat scuppered roof surrounded by a low parapet, sat in the middle of a twenty acre plot of mostly desert sand. Sparsely vegetated by devil cholla, desert hackberry, salt brush, mesquite, plus an occasional palo verde mixed with a few stately saguaro cacti, this piece of the Sonora Desert, sat corralled by sharply rugged mountains nearly devoid of vegetation. His favorite multi-armed monster saguaro, one Draper estimated to be at least a couple centuries old, served as home to a family of cactus wrens. His porch faced north, shaded from the southern sun and enabling him to watch both sunrises and sunsets by simply repositioning his chair. Best of all, cloudless skies prevailed three hundred and twenty days a year, a climate monotony broken only by an occasional brief winter rainstorm. Draper had heard the locals proclaim tongue-in-cheek, that during the heaviest rain storm, the distance between raindrops made it possible to walk a mile before getting wet. He set a few bread crumbs on the porch railing for George, a rather large gecko that habitually visited every morning. George was nearly six inches long, including his tail, and would wait patiently if Draper slept late.

The sun had been heating the desert for over an hour when his cell phone rang. Barely hearing the sound since he’d left it in the house somewhere, he debated ignoring it for a moment before moving, stretching his lanky frame to stand. It took several rings for him to locate the noisy instrument, unfold it and bark a hoarse, Hello!

Hello, yourself, grumpy, a familiar female voice replied.

Hi, Molly, are you on duty or just calling to harass me?

Molly Sorenson, County Sheriff for just under five years, a record for a job nobody wanted, and one that had noticeably aged her beyond her pushing fortieth birthday. Her office in Ajo was responsible for all of Ajo County, which, at sixty-four-hundred square miles, was one of the largest counties in Arizona and included ninety-three miles of common border with Sonora, Mexico. Still, Draper had to admit she fit into her law enforcement uniform quite nicely and when he’d first met her, he’d admitted to looking more than twice. They’d been working on a relationship for most of a year which hadn’t progressed much due to her job dedication, long hours and his quirky living arrangements. Draper had to concede that a forty-mile drive after a fourteen hour shift dealing with scum-bags, drunks, small-time crooks and a variety of genuine assholes, didn’t afford much time or energy for extra-curricular activities. Worst yet, crooks, deviates, and genuine assholes didn’t take weekends off.

I suppose you were sitting on the porch watching the sunrise?

Yup, Draper responded, It would be better if you were here watching it with me.

So, what’s in it for me?

How about the best cup of coffee this side of Phoenix and the company of a worn out spook?

Best offer I’ve had in days, but this is a business call not a pleasure one. I’m sending a lady out to see you and I want you listen to her.

Okay. What’s the deal?

"Her daughter went missing Sunday. We’ve had deputies out for a couple of days. Found her car up in the Dry Mountains. We’ve notified the Border Patrol to keep a lookout, but they’ve got their hands full and we’re short staffed. I’m also swamped with a backlog of cases and budget cuts.

Three days in the desert, you know she’s probably dead.

I know, but the mother says the girl is desert savvy and goes out a lot taking pictures. Just listen to her and do what you can; for me. I’ll make it up to you.

Sure, promises, promises.

Just listen, okay?

I will. When will she be here?

She left here just a bit ago; say an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

You know, this is going to cost you. You’ll have to come out here for dinner and suffer my company for hours.

I know, put it on my tab.

It’s already posted.

Thanks, Charlie.

Draper was still nursing the cup of coffee, sitting on his front porch waiting for his company forty-five minutes later. George had come and gone, devouring two morsels and hauling away the rest. He was pretty sure Molly had told the girl’s mother about his airplane and how he flew Molly around when she needed it. In fact, that was how he met the Sheriff. He wasn’t the only pilot around with commercial ticket, but he was the only one with time on his hands. His gaze moved left to his WWII Quonset hut-style hanger protecting his twenty-five-year-old Cessna 182N from drifting sand and scorching sun. Maybe he’d get to fly today. That wouldn’t make it all bad.

When Draper looked back to the west he could see dust boiling up on the county road which turned and continued on a quarter-mile long stretch to his house. From the speed indicated by the dust volume, his visitor was in a hurry. The car slid to a stop within feet of his front railing; a relatively new black Mercedes four-door with California plates. California plates in this part of Arizona were common, but Mercedes cars, especially black ones, were an uncommon choice in the desert, unless, of course, you were a drug dealer. Draper stood, held his coffee cup left-handed and watched a woman with recently coiffured locks of mixed grey, blond highlights, and remnants of her original dark auburn hair. In her early fifties, Draper guessed, monied, but not displaying it, wearing light blue dress, open in front exposing a modest hint of cleavage. Tall and slender with just a touch of middle-age weight, she mounted the three steps to the porch smartly; her eyes hard with determination when she held out her hand.

Her voice, low and melodic, flowed out of a mouth that probably sank a few male hearts when she was younger and likely had not suffered much with age. The entire package made her a striking woman.

Mister Draper, she said, My name is Victoria Hollings; I believe the local Sheriff called you?

Draper took her hand gently, releasing it immediately. Yes, she did. Please have a seat. I understand your daughter is missing.

Victoria Hollings sat, dropping into the chair Draper indicated and exhaling as if she’d been kicked in the gut. Her eyes concentrated on the porch floor, but not before Draper could see tears welling in the corners. She was fighting for control so he waited silently.

Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Draper, she said, after a long moment.

No problem. Why don’t you tell me about your daughter? What are her likes and dislikes and what was she doing in Ajo?

I need to know what you charge. Sheriff Sorenson said you are a retired policeman.

Sort of, but not local, Federal. I have a law degree, a commercial pilot’s license and spent too many long years in Federal service. He didn’t mention the alphabet agency, nor the years in foreign counties that consumed his life for nearly twenty years. The first day is free, that’s today. After that it’s five hundred a day plus expenses and you can fire me at anytime.

She’s tall, about five-nine, I think, twenty-six, independent, stubborn, intelligent, nuts about photography and works for the local newspaper in Ajo. And she hasn’t listened to a word I’ve said since she was sixteen.

I suspect she’s a lot like her mother.

Victoria Hollings looked directly at Draper for the first time. You are very direct, Mr. Draper.

I have a lot of other faults also, so why don’t you call me Charlie? Most people do, although I’ve been called worse.

"All right, Charlie," she emphasized his name slightly, as if she had trouble with informality, and didn’t ask him to call her by her first name.

"I talked to her last on Saturday night. She indicated she was going to walk a couple of miles into some old mine and take pictures.

When did she talk to her father last? Draper asked. He wanted to bet there wasn’t a father in the picture and decided to clarify that aspect.

Jennifer’s father passed away when she was five of a heart attack. He left us in good shape financially and I was able to raise her alone.

Any other family where she might go?

No, there’s just the two of us.

"Mrs. Hollings, I know this is difficult, but I can’t help you unless I have as much information as possible.

I know, she said.

Draper could see she was teetering on the edge, but battling hard against it. Listen, he said, I was about to eat breakfast. How about you join me and we’ll plan what we’re going to do.

You’ll help me?

I’m going to try. But, you have to suffer through my cooking first. Then we’ll take my plane and see what we can see.

I’m not very hungry.

While Draper cooked breakfast, Victoria